Regional workshop focuses on generating income from nonagricultural work

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Burundi organized a regional conference on good practices for promoting income-generating activities (IGAs) as part of socioeconomic reintegration. The conference was organized within the framework of AFSC’s dialogue and exchange program, which brings together key groups to discuss peace issues and shares the resulting recommendations within Burundi and internationally.

The three-day event brought together more than 40 participants from eight countries: Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, DRC, and Rwanda. Most of the participants were entrepreneurs who work with grassroots communities in their countries.

The main goal of the conference was to promote dialogue and exchanges of experiences of those in countries with growing nonagricultural economic sectors and those in countries trying to develop more nonagricultural economic sectors.

Minister of Communal Development Martin Nivyabandi officially opened the conference on behalf of the government of Burundi. “I am sure fruitful exchanges will lead you to exchange and identify good practices, challenges, opportunities, and success stories relating to income-generating activities, and formulate relevant recommendations that will improve living conditions of households,” he said.

Dereje Wordofa, AFSC's regional director based in Nairobi, also spoke to participants during the opening ceremony, emphasizing the importance of their collaboration. “Today, there are so many challenges for post-conflict recovery in Africa, because social fabric, economic structures, and human capital have been shattered by years of violence,” he said. “The realities would, of course, make post-conflict reconstructions and rehabilitations daunting tasks. The problem of widespread unemployment among rural and urban communities in Africa can be addressed through job creation and opportunities to start small businesses. Then, it is important that all institutions work in partnership with common vision, shared values, and mutual accountability.”

Laurent Rudasingwa of the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund delivered a keynote address on community recovery and peace-building in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and development. He discussed three main aspects of sustainable development: the empowerment of rural areas, employment creation, and development of rural entrepreneurship, and emphasized that before discussions of socio-economic reintegration can begin, conflict must end, and an environment that enables development must be cultivated.

During the workshop, one case study shared the experience of a long-term, holistic, social and economic reintegration program working with returnees, displaced people, ex-combatants, and their host communities. In another session, participants discussed IGAs with high growth-potential and shared the major components of a training module to support those IGAs.

Other presentations discussed IGAs and sustainable development; the identification of high-growth IGAs; the creation, supervision, and support of community associations; the role of micro-finance projects; and gender and IGAs.

In-depth discussions and working-group sessions informed the final recommendations and conclusions, included here:

Nonagricultural income-generating activities that should be developed:

Small business (food, clothes, shoes, beer, shop, livestock fattening, purchase and sale of livestock, community pharmacy, cosmetics, international and cross-border trade)

Organize communities and support self-financing because communities can finance their own development. Self-finance operations and micro-finance are not contradictory, but complement each other. The first prepares the effectiveness of the second.

Avoid granting large amounts of credit inconsistent with management capacity.

Encourage visits to exchange experiences between communities.

Promote partnership among public, private, and civil society. The public authority has the role of establishing incentives for investment in rural areas. NGOs and civil society have the role of supporting communities and informing the private sector about business opportunities in rural areas.

Encourage micro-finance institutions to communicate with communities on the services they provide.

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